Case Study: NSF’s Food Safety Audits Give a Competitive Edge

Hooters of America (HOA) is the owner of the iconic Hooters® restaurant brand. It is the operator or franchisor of more than 400 Hooters restaurants in 38 US states and 28 countries. The chain’s success is founded upon food and fun. Its popular, fast-casual dining concept offers a diverse range of high-quality, chef-inspired dishes, including wings and sauces, as well as sandwiches, salads, shrimp and other side items. It is particularly well-known for Hoots Wings, its chicken specialty.

Food safety is of the utmost importance to HOA. With so many high-profile, neighborhood restaurants, consumer confidence in the Hooters brand is critical. The company recognizes the need to evaluate risks regularly and constantly strives to improve its food safety performance.

HOA Brands was determined to ensure the highest food safety standards across all of its restaurants, including both corporate-owned and franchisee sites, and covering a multitude of risk areas, from food temperature and contact surfaces to handwashing and pest control.

In May 2022, HOA selected NSF to help it manage food safety risks through rigorous, responsive independent audit programs and data.

HOA chose NSF for two key reasons: firstly, a member of the Quality Assurance and Commercialization team had been reassured by NSF’s expertise and built a positive relationship with them in a previous role with another major food business; secondly, since 2016 HOA has been successfully using NSF’s cloudbased quality and compliance software, TraQtion, to provide transparency to its food and beverage supply chain and strengthen supplier and product compliance. “We were already very comfortable working with NSF and it made sense for us to deepen the relationship by making them our food safety audit partner,” says a team member.

By retaining the same audit framework and requirements as it had used previously, HOA was able to confirm a marked improvement in standards and understand how NSF’s audits were making a difference. Specifically, the team highlights the direct correlation between the audits and the significant reduction in the number of ‘critical violations’ identified by the Health Department.

“Prior to working with NSF, we weren’t generally seeing statistically significant improvements. Now we are. That’s a sure sign of the success of the audits.”

Ultimately, NSF’s audits mean Hooters’ managers and staff are becoming more knowledgeable in food safety, customers are better protected, the brand’s reputation is enhanced, and its commercial performance is boosted.

With the relationship now firmly established, NSF is regarded not merely as HOA’s food safety ‘supplier’ but as its brand protection partner. The HOA team foresees new food safety challenges and risks emerging in the coming years, not least the FSMA 204 Rule, which requires companies to keep additional records for designated foods to protect public health. But they remain confident that, through this successful collaboration, they can be identified and managed.